• • •
Things back at the office shifted when a new staff sergeant was assigned to our company. A seasoned grunt, Fox was often bitter, his skin turning yellow with sarcasm or anger. He did not like answering to anyone, least of all women, and was once so fed up when I gave him a simple order that he mouthed off to me. I wasn’t offended as much as shocked. He got his ass nicely chewed by the captain.
After each three-week training cycle, we received student evaluations in which we’d find out who among our instructors had made a difference in the lives of young Marines. It was an opportunity to assess student morale and improve staff performance. The captain called me early one evening after I’d driven home from our ten-mile hike in the field. He told me to come back to the office immediately.
Captain Jacob looked haggard and strangely depleted for a guy his size. Four hundred student evaluations were stacked on his desk.
“Lieutenant Bhagwati, sit down. We’ve got a problem.”
It felt like someone had died. It turned out to be much worse. Staff Sergeant Fox had been accused of sexually assaulting female students in the field. And they had spoken out en masse.
Sexual predators thrived in places like the Corps, especially when they had rank. Privates, most of them straight out of high school, had no power here. Female privates, even less. These anonymous student evaluations were the only way of getting word up the chain of command that there was a sex offender on our staff.
The captain placed our students on graduation hold, preventing four hundred Marines from flying around the country to their follow-on training schools. He prepared to get official statements from the students, which would be critical in military judicial proceedings.
The next couple of days were a haze. Overworked, stretched thin, and needing to attend to his two small children back home, my boss asked me to step into a meeting with our battalion commander. I reported in. The BC was in the middle of a phone call and pointed at me to sit down.
He had a Marine’s mother on the line. The mother was in hysterics, threatening to go to CNN and tell reporters about Fox and the sexual assault scandal. My BC remained calm and focused. He insisted things were being handled, that she need not worry, that her child would be fine.
I was mortified, hearing this man spin a tall tale for an American mother. How did he know her child was fine? Did he have any idea what Fox was capable of? Did any of us? And why the hell was I there to witness this thing? Was my presence enabling this charade?
Monday morning came quickly. I checked in with the captain. He looked pale.
“They transferred Fox to the fleet. He’s back with an infantry battalion. They’re getting ready to deploy to Iraq.”
“Sir?”
“He’s not being charged,” he explained. “They let him get away with it.”
“Holy shit.”
“All those kids.” My boss looked devastated.
“There’s nothing we can do?”
“Lieutenant Bhagwati, when a full-bird colonel makes a staff sergeant disappear like he never existed, it means it’s been handled.”
It was almost impossible for me to reconcile that the school colonel, who prided himself on promoting women, on mentoring his own daughter into the officer Corps, had just covered up a sexual assault scandal and willingly sent a predator back out into the Marine Corps. Was this really happening?
There was little time to think about any of this. Captain Jacob was transferred a few days later to another company. It looked an awful lot like they needed him to disappear, too. I got a new company commander. We continued to train Marines like nothing had happened.
CHAPTER 8
One Last Oorah
In 2003, my battalion commander gave me an early promotion to captain, and I became the only woman to command a training company at the School of Infantry. Before the change of command, I sought guidance from the best expert I knew on drill and ceremony: Brenda Baughman. My old drill instructor was stationed at an adjacent unit, and she was more than happy to give me some feedback for my new position. She adjusted the pitch and volume of my voice, and the inflection of my words as I called my mock company to attention. We went back and forth, call and response, until finally, I was ready.
Being a company commander was a privilege that not every officer was given. At twenty-eight, I had a ton of responsibilities, not least of which was making sure no one got killed on a live-fire range. I had a brand-new set of staff instructors, and a group of incredibly talented NCOs, including two young women who were changing the game for all of us.
Miranda Hamby was Alabama born and bred, with a thick accent and quick wit. She was twenty-one years old, a die-hard Marine who took her job seriously and never, ever complained. She was the first to volunteer to help someone in need, and had the humility of someone who’d never had anything given to her without hard work. To the delight of her senior enlisted supervisors, she drank up new infantry skills and taught them to her squad with a clarity and enthusiasm that others envied. She was determined to get them to learn, and she had no patience for slackers. At all of five feet four, she had the spirit of a giant. In many ways, she reminded me of a younger version of Baughman.
By the time I was settled into the company, I had a slight Alabama accent myself and was y’alling up and down the live-fire ranges. There were moments during the twelve- to sixteen-hour training days when Hamby’s relentless energy and hysterical commentary would have the entire leadership staff in stitches. I felt proud that this many grunts acknowledged her raw talent.
Jennifer Katz was the other phenom in the company. She was a physical stud and a fiercely determined NCO. She had fire in her belly that came from a desire to prove the guys wrong, something I understood intimately and admired in her. She strode around the training field with a formidable presence, rallying her troops to excellence. Occasionally we’d cross paths in the gym during our off-hours, and she’d tell me about her training goals and the trajectory of her career. She was a serious Marine.
Sergeants Hamby and Katz delivered squad after squad of solid new Marines. Their talents got some of the SNCOs in our company discussing women in the infantry. They’d spend smoke breaks talking about sending Hamby and Katz through Infantry Squad Leaders’ Course, if it were only allowed, and shutting up anyone who thought the women weren’t strong enough to make it. I quietly beamed.
Aside from these women, my biggest influence during this time was my company first sergeant, Ray Mackey. Mackey had spent over two decades in Marine Corps infantry, and had survived the Beirut bombing as a teenager in the Corps. He had the steely, I-don’t-give-a-shit attitude of a man who had seen it all. But his no-nonsense style was balanced by enormous compassion. He cared as much about our Marines as he did his own kids. None of them—none of us—wanted to disappoint him.
Mackey and I were an odd couple, he the stubborn and big-hearted first sergeant whose word was gospel to the troops, and I the firm and passionate commander whom he wholeheartedly supported. As the company boss, I never tried to be something I wasn’t, or get involved in details Mackey or our instructors could clearly handle. I learned from my staff, guided them where I thought they needed guidance, and listened to Mackey’s counsel. He didn’t hesitate to tell me what he thought, but always respectfully. We earned a reputation of taking care of our people. We were a happy, hardworking company, and many of the troops in the battalion wanted to serve with us.
Week after week, we trained thousands of Marines in the combat skills they’d eventually be using in Iraq and Afghanistan. The world was changing, and training took on new meaning. These Marines were going to war, whether their recruiters had told them or not.
Abu Ghraib was a turning point for me. I was in the company field office with my SNCOs one morning as the news rolled in about Iraqi prisoners being tortured and sexually humiliated by US soldiers.
Everyone chimed in. The Army was undisciplined. Nasty. Weak. This was their problem. And that
was the end of that. I took things a bit more to heart, gathering the four hundred students in our company in formation, telling them that we’d done something unacceptable, and that the entire world was watching us.
“We have to take the higher ground. We have a moral responsibility to treat all people with dignity.”
As with all lectures from officers, I had no idea if this speech of mine touched anyone. Most of these Marines would see the Middle East in the role of invader and occupier. Whether they would end up calling Muslims and Arabs ragheads, sand niggers, or hajjis like far too many of their fellow Marines, I wouldn’t know. In the week after 9/11, I remembered listening to an unhinged master sergeant rattle on about wanting to kill every man, woman, and child in Afghanistan. With these younger Marines, I could only plant a seed.
Officers usually only knew as many details about personnel issues as their senior enlisted advisers chose to tell them. One day Mackey informed me that a white kid in our company had called a Black kid the N-word, and flat-out refused to train with him. With Mackey observing his every move, the white Marine reported in to me first. Stood before my desk at all of 120 pounds of skin and bones.
So, you’re the big, bad racist, I thought.
“Did it ever occur to you that you’re going to be deploying with Marines from all different backgrounds who might save your life someday?” This was mostly a rhetorical question, and he sensed it, staying locked at attention.
“Did it ever occur to you you’re actually working for Marines who aren’t white?” Again, a blank stare.
“There’s no room for bigots in my company. There’s no room for bigots in the Marine Corps. Get out of here. You’re dismissed.”
“Ay, Ma’am,” he exhaled, pivoting like a wet mop.
“No! Do it again!” Mackey gave him a look of death.
The kid about-faced one more time, then ghosted.
The Black Marine, Private Johnson, reported in a few hours later.
“At ease, Marine.” God, they were so damn young, these kids. He was the same size as his racist counterpart. I could have drop-kicked both of them to the other end of the room without even trying.
“Private Johnson, there are a lot of morons in this world. And unfortunately some of them make it into the Marine Corps.”
“Yes, Ma’am.”
The kid was looking at me softly.
We’d already written up and scared the living hell out of the bigot, so I figured making a lesson out of his ignorance might help everyone in the company. I asked Johnson if he was okay staying in the white Marine’s fire team and showing him that just because his parents didn’t teach him right from wrong didn’t mean we couldn’t. Johnson nodded his head and reported back to his squad.
I turned to Mackey and sighed. “Have the NCOs all over that racist punk, First Sergeant. I don’t want Private Johnson to put up with that shit ever again.”
“You got it, Ma’am.”
• • •
We heard that the battalion was getting a new lieutenant months before it happened. Neil Thomas had just won a Bronze Star in Iraq for saving lives on the battlefield. The grunts in the battalion sensed that despite his junior rank, Thomas was going to have an ego that would displace everything. And they were right.
That fall, Lieutenant Thomas arrived. Because I didn’t have an executive officer, he was assigned to my company. Before meeting with me, he’d made a beeline for Mackey. Mackey told me promptly that Thomas had griped about being assigned to an integrated company, and what was a woman doing commanding one of these companies anyhow?
So the man didn’t like women. Heck if I cared. He was going to have to adjust.
Thomas was older than me by a few years, and a prior enlisted infantryman. Still, he was just a lieutenant, and it meant he had to take orders from me, a lowly noninfantry captain, whether he wanted to or not.
I made sure Thomas stayed busy. Training four hundred Marines every day meant a lot of supervision, so I split the live-fire ranges and classroom time with him and carried on as usual. Thomas fell into a routine. He tried to buddy up with the grunts in the unit, but I wasn’t the least bit threatened. They still knew I was in charge, and they continued to answer to me.
During one of our slower months, our company requalified on the rifle range. To no one’s surprise but Thomas’s, I was shooting better than him.
“Ma’am, the guys in my old unit would never let me hear the end of it.” I shrugged my shoulders.
A few months into Thomas’s time with us, Mackey called me in from the field. He never did that unless there was an emergency. I closed his door and sat down.
“First Sergeant?”
He spoke slowly and calmly. Sergeant Katz had accused Lieutenant Thomas of sexual harassment. He had called one of her female students a slut. She confronted him. The lieutenant responded by spreading rumors that Katz had given him a blow job. Katz was livid, and was not taking Thomas’s words without a fight. Sergeant Hamby immediately came to Katz’s defense and challenged Thomas. The whole thing then erupted throughout the company.
None of this was hard to believe. Thomas had practically broadcast his misogyny on a jumbotron. But after his initial temper tantrums about women in the Corps, I was hoping he would acclimate to our company. Instead, he’d just been wreaking havoc.
“Oh fuck. How’s Katz?”
“She’s upset.”
Yeah, no shit. I sat there, thinking. The clock was ticking, and my head began to ache. “Options, First Sergeant?”
There was nothing easy about this, but I knew what I had to do. Thomas was like a leaking oil tanker. I decided to keep him away from the company till I spoke with the battalion commander. I called Thomas in from the field, leaving my staff sergeants in charge of training.
An hour later, Thomas came into my office, tentatively.
“Sit down, Lieutenant Thomas.” He sat.
I relayed what I’d been told, without emotion. I saw his face rapidly turning red. He barely let me finish.
“That’s bullshit. They’re lying!” he snapped.
“Listen, Lieutenant Thomas, I want you to stay home till we sort this out.”
This sent him over the edge. He lashed out hard, yelling, calling them liars, again and again. I raised my voice, once.
“Shut the hell up.”
He did.
I wasn’t budging, and he knew it. A menacing look appeared in his eyes. He narrowed them, curled his mouth to one side, and said, “I know you had a relationship with a staff NCO. Sergeant Gornik told me.” Oh great. Bumblebee Socks was spending free time with the lieutenant. That could only spell disaster for both of them. Thomas’s sudden attempts at deflection and mutiny didn’t work. I met him head-on, looking him in the eye.
“Is that right? With whom?”
The lieutenant was searching for names in his head. He didn’t know. He let it go.
“Go home, Lieutenant Thomas.”
He got really quiet then. And calm. Which just made him look sinister.
“I’m gonna request mast to the colonel,” he said, invoking the same protocol I’d told Ibrahim to use when he wanted to speak to someone several levels up the chain of command. Our current school colonel, Gary Keller, had replaced the jump-master who had officiated the sexual assault cover-up. Keller was one of Thomas’s old commanders and had recommended Thomas for OCS, paving the way for the infantry sergeant to assert his misogyny with the rank of an officer. The new colonel lacked any of his predecessor’s gravitas. He was the kind of socially awkward guy you could tell was bullied as a kid. But none of that mattered now. He had rank. Over me and Thomas, over Katz and the battalion CO.
“Go right ahead. You can submit the paperwork to Sergeant Katz. She’s working at the battalion office today. I’m sure she’ll process it efficiently.” I looked at him, unblinking. That had hit him square between the eyes. He stormed out of there.
My battalion commander, Lieutenant Colonel David Hubbard, was
also new to the job. His predecessor, the one who’d talked the Marine mother into keeping quiet about the sexual assault scandal, had just retired. Hubbard had returned stateside after a lengthy combat tour. He seemed to be a fair, levelheaded man. At an officer function he’d recently hosted at his house, I met his wife and his teenage daughter, a bright girl who was a competitive swimmer. I had given her a copy of Lynne Cox’s open-water swimming memoir. They were a picture-perfect family.
I’d handled dozens of personnel issues in every unit I’d served in. But handling a renegade subordinate was something new. I couldn’t wait for my battalion commander to knock some sense into Thomas and send him on his way. Sitting on the edge of my seat in his office, I told Hubbard the details of what Thomas had been doing to the women in my company. I felt relieved. It didn’t last long.
“Captain Bhagwati, Marines accuse officers of all kinds of things.”
“Excuse me, Sir?” He must not have heard me.
“Marines say things. Accusations like this can ruin careers.”
Oh god, he had heard me. I looked at Hubbard, searching for some sign in his blank expression. Someone must have gotten to him before I did. He didn’t even feign shock. He didn’t even pretend to need time to gather the facts.
“Sir, we’re talking about Katz and Hamby. They’re the best NCOs in our company.”
Hubbard just stared at me. Shit, this wasn’t working.
“You just gave Hamby a NAM.I Are you saying they’re lying, Sir?”
“Marines get frustrated, and they lash out.”
My head was reeling.
“Sir, you know Thomas has issues with women. He never wanted to be in an integrated company. He made it known. Loud and clear.”
“Look, Captain Bhagwati, you gave Thomas good marks on his last fitness report.”
It was true. It was after he calmed down a bit and I felt he’d gotten the swing of things. But one good evaluation didn’t mean he wasn’t a serial harasser. It didn’t mean anything.
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